Manufacturer Purdue Pharma's patent on the original drug was set to expire Tuesday, and activists, lawmakers and doctors worried that cheaper, easily crushable generic versions would flood Kentucky and exacerbate the state's already devastating drug-abuse problem.Yes, well, there are other options.
"I think (this decision) saves lives," said Karen Kelly, president and chief executive of the Eastern Kentucky anti-drug organization Operation UNITE. "Preventing this from hitting the streets is a major victory."
The FDA decision is also a victory for Purdue Pharma, because generic companies now must develop their own non-crushable formulas before putting an OxyContin version on the market. OxyContin has long been one of the nation's top-selling prescription painkillers, with sales of more than $2.8 billion last year, according to prescription tracker IMS Health
Like not rewarding these assholes for their fraudulent reporting practices and the resulting public health clusterfk and handing them another monopoly...
It's insanity in a pill. Pull all of it off the market. Or make the new version generic. That would be somewhat equitable.
